A user equipment (UE) may be configured to establish a connection to at least one of a plurality of different networks or types of networks to perform a variety of different functionalities via the network connection. For example, the UE may communicate with another UE through the network connection. In another example, the UE may communicate with various servers to exchange data.
A UE and a network may communicate by exchanging subframes over a communication channel. The communication channel may correspond to a bandwidth range and a bandwidth range may correspond to the maximum amount of data that may be sent over the communication channel for a duration. A bandwidth range may be referred to as a band and characterized as a wideband or a narrowband. For example, in the 3GPP Release 13, enhanced MTC (eMTC) or Category-M1 devices are introduced and may utilize a narrowband that has a range of 1.4 MHz (e.g., a 6 resource block (RB) narrowband). Wideband operations may utilize a wider bandwidth compared to narrowband operations. Thus, wideband operations may utilize larger subframes and transport more data. However, an increase in bandwidth range correlates to an increase in the amount of power consumed by the UE. In contrast, limiting the bandwidth range may conserve power but less data may be transported.
When the UE has established a connection with the network, the UE may receive a subframe over a control channel. However, due to a variety of factors the UE may be unable to demodulate data within the subframe, decode data within the subframe or perform channel estimation based on data within the subframe. Conventionally, a network accounts for this by repeatedly transmitting subframes to the UE via the control channel. Thus, conventionally, the UE may receive a first subframe at a first time over the control channel, a second subframe at a second time over the control channel, a third subframe at a third time over the control channel, etc. In legacy approaches, the UE may attempt to demodulate, decode and perform channel estimation after each subframe is received. As described above, the UE may be unable to perform these operations and thus, the UE may perform several unsuccessful attempts of these operations (e.g. demodulation, decoding, channel estimation, etc.). Thus, a UE may waste a significant amount of power performing unsuccessful attempts of these operations.
Conventional systems not only waste power performing unsuccessful operations but conventional systems also waste power due to latency corresponding to the initiation of these operations (e.g. demodulation, decoding, channel estimation, etc.). For example, in legacy approaches a UE waits for the entire duration of a subframe to be received prior to initiating certain operations (e.g. demodulation, decoding, channel estimation, etc.). However, the UE may have received all of the data it needs to initiate these operations after only a first portion of the first subframe has been received. Thus, a UE may be unnecessarily waiting to initiate these operations until the UE receives the remaining portion of the first subframe. Consequently, this latency delays the UE from being able to enter a power saving mode.
As mentioned above, CAT-M1 devices support narrowband operations. These types of devices may utilize the CAT-M1 physical downlink control channel (MPDCCH) to receive, from the network, control information that may coordinate the subsequent reception of data via a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH). For example, a MPDCCH subframe received at the k subframe may schedule a PDSCH subframe at the k+2 subframe. These devices may be vulnerable to the deficiencies noted above with regard to legacy approaches. For example, the network may schedule the transmission of a first MPDCCH subframe at a first time and a second MPDCCH subframe at a second time because, but due to a variety of factors, it is likely the UE will not be able to successfully perform certain MPDCCH operations (e.g. demodulation, decoding, channel estimation, etc.) after the reception of only the first subframe at the first time. Thus, under legacy approaches, a UE receives the first MPDCCH subframe at the first time, waits for the entire duration of the MPDCCH subframe to be received, then unsuccessfully attempts to perform certain MPDCCH operations (e.g. demodulation, decoding, channel estimation, etc.). The UE then receives a second MPDCCH subframe at the second time, waits for the entire duration of the second MPDCCH subframe to be received (despite receiving the data necessary to perform MPDCCH operations after receiving only a first duration of the second subframe), then successfully initiates MPDCCH operations (e.g. demodulation, decoding, channel estimation, etc.). The exemplary embodiments cure the above noted deficiencies by avoiding attempts to perform certain operations (e.g. demodulation, decoding, channel estimation, etc.) that are unlikely to be successful and eliminating latency associated with the initiation of these operations.